Game Magic: A Designer's Guide to Magic Systems in Theory and Practice - Softcover

Howard, Jeff

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1466567856 ISBN 13: 9781466567856

Publisher: A K Peters/CRC Press, 2014

Synopsis

Make More Immersive and Engaging Magic Systems in Games

Game Magic: A Designer’s Guide to Magic Systems in Theory and Practice explains how to construct magic systems and presents a compendium of arcane lore, encompassing the theory, history, and structure of magic systems in games and human belief. The author combines rigorous scholarly analysis with practical game design advice in the form of a magical recipe book (grimoire).

The book gives you an in-depth understanding of the history and structure of magic to make your games richer and deeper. It shows how to set up tables of correspondences and spell components as well as how to write programming code integrating these components as part of game mechanics. It also illustrates how to divide a simulated world into domains of influence (such as alteration, conjuration, and necromancy) and how to use specific rule systems to simulate powers within these realms.

Showing you how to weave compelling magic into your games, the book is interspersed with examples that illustrate how to design and program magic systems. Working examples are available for download on a supporting website.

About this title

About the Author

Jeff Howard

Edition details

• Publisher: A K Peters/CRC Press
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1466567856
• ISBN 13: 9781466567856
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 376